Romney Advisors Presented As Impartial Analysts On Fox News

John Bolton, Jay Sekulow and Walid Phares are all regular guests on Fox News, presented as analysts to discuss foreign affairs, legal issues and Middle East/terrorism issues, respectively. Yet what you rarely find out from the "we report, you decide" network is that each of these gentlemen are advisors to the Mitt Romney Campaign. Bolton and Phares are paid Fox News contributors.

Bolton signed a March 27 "open letter" in which he and others were listed as "Romney Foreign Policy Advisers." The letter questioned "whether a new period of even greater weakness and inconstancy would lie ahead if you [President Obama] are reelected."

...Media Matters reviewed a week of Bolton's recent Fox News appearances* -- April 26 through May 3, seven appearances -- and found that Bolton was not identified as a Romney adviser. Bolton was identified as a Fox News contributor and a former UN ambassador.

...In the lead-up to the Ohio primary on March 6, the Romney campaign released a radio ad with Sekulow.

On April 6, Politico's Jonathan Martin identified Sekulow as a Romney adviser and reported that Sekulow is serving as a liaison "between the former Massachusetts governor and movement conservatives." Martin added that Sekulow helped coordinate a meeting "with about 10 prominent Republican leaders."

...An October 6, 2011, Romney campaign press release listed Phares as a special adviser on Romney's foreign policy and national security advisory team. Phares signed a March 27 "open letter" to President Obama in which he and others were listed as "Romney Foreign Policy Advisers."

Phares' most recent appearance on a Fox property was on the April 19 edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight, where he was critical of the Obama administration's handling of Syria. Phares was identified as a Fox News Middle Eastern affairs analyst and an author but not as a Romney adviser.

I see these gentlemen regularly on Fox. Bolton is on On The Record nearly every night and I have yet to hear him or any of the others introduced as Romney advisors.

Check out the Media Matters post for more incriminating details about Fox News' disingenuousness in presenting these partisans as analysts.

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Ellen, that was during the last freak-out Fox News had about Obama in 2010 – when Hannity was absolutely certain that the Sestak thing was going to become an issue. He never owned up to the fact that it didn’t, and it wasn’t.

John Bolton has no credibility as a foreign relations expert given the things that came out when GW Bush appointed him as UN Ambassador. His tenure as such was embarassing to all but the guys on Fox News who have endured his self-promotion (remember his discussions about running for President?) in order to have a reliably anti-Obama voice pop up in the guise of foreign relations.

Jay Sekulow is a much, much nastier piece of work. Not only is he responsible for some rather questionable business activities (millions funnelled from his ACLJ into his own pockets) but he regularly pops up to shout at guests on Hannity’s discussions. I’m not certain what real qualifications he has aside from agreeing with whatever extreme position Sean Hannity is taking up at the moment.

Well, it’s high time to ask Mittens why he has a KNOWNTERRORISTSYMPATHIZER advising his campaign:

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Bolton has long spoken in favor of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK), “an armed Islamic group with Marxist leanings” which has long been on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. According to the State Department, the MEK “[f]ollow[s] a philosophy that mixes Marxism and Islam.” In the 1970s, MEK members, who “had been trained by the Soviet Union in guerilla warfare and supported Khomeini . . . assassinated U.S. military officers then working in Iran. MEK members actively took part in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, according to a U.S. government report.”

According to conservative activist Kenneth Timmerman, executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran:
Iranian-Americans openly refer to MEK leader Massoud Rajavi as the âPol Potâ of Iran, because they believe he would conduct wholesale massacres of his political opponents should the current regime implode and the MEK seize power through organized street violence. In the groupâs â16 pointsâ for a future âdemocraticâ Iran, they promise political freedom to all â except their political enemies.

On January 25, 2011, Bolton drew a standing ovation at a Brussels conference in support of the MEK, giving a speech in which he “backed MEKâs legitimacy, and the notion of removing it from the list of terrorist organizations.”Georgetown law professor David D. Cole has pointed out that “the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support [including] engag[ing] in public advocacy to challenge a groupâs ‘terrorist’ designation,” under the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.